Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 12/11/2008

Question
Hi Kevin,
I am using a font that does not have a "bold" option. To separate a line of text by making it slightly bolder, I have added a 0.25pt stroke to the text. I now need to create outlines for all text for pre-press purposes. By default, Illustrator creates outlines of the text and leaves the stroke around the outlines.

I would like the stroke around the text to be built into the outlines. How do I do this? (I am using Illustrator CS3).

Thanks!

Answer
Hi April,

There really isnt a prepress need to add the strokes as part of the actual fill, keeping them as strokes wont affect preflight/prepress.

However, if you need to make the stroke part of the filled object (so there is no longer a stroke, only a thicker shape). You would have to go go Object>expand to change the stroke into a shape, and then merge the new stroke shape and the filled shape together using the pathfinder palette.


Again, this is not easy and for prepress not necessary.


Thanks

Kevin